Aftermath
by larkgrace
Summary: Because rebuilding is hard, especially when the foundation is cracked. Companion to Disaster. Oneshot. Sorry it took so long, but the site wouldn't let me publish it...


**This is a follow-up to my oneshot called Disaster. So many people reviewed the last one, and I couldn't just leave you guys hanging, so my sick and twisted mind produced this. As always, keep praying for Japan; they need it. I don't own PJO.**

O-o-O

Rebuilding is always hard. It is infinitely harder when the foundation is shattered.

Sally stumbled from the Prius, slamming the door and sprinting to the wreckage of her home. She shoved past the crowds, past the police, and hurdled the yellow tape that wrapped around the perimeter of the newly unearthed room, a little oasis of peace in the midst of so much chaos.

She and Paul had caught the first flight back to New York they could get. It had been two hours since the quake that had rocked her own personal world to pieces.

Everything in the wreckage of Sally's apartment room lay untouched, exactly as it had been when the diggers had discovered it. Thalia's body was curled in a distant corner, beaten and bloody; even in death, her face was contorted in pain, as if she had suffered for a long time before relief came. There was a young girl with auburn hair, sitting in the rubble next to her, gently stroking Thalia's face. Silver tears poured from the strange silvery yellow eyes of the child. Katie Gardener and the Stoll brothers were stretched out on top of each other—like collapsed dominos—in the wreckage of the doorway. If not for their terrified expressions, Sally could have thought them sleeping. Nico di Angelo was collapsed near the place where the television once stood; he was curled in on himself, his lifeless, cold hands clutching his twisted and shattered leg, an unfinished cry of agony frozen on his lips.

Sally slowly approached the center of the rubble, her eyes swimming with tears and body shaking with sobs as her baby boy came into view.

He looked nothing like the others. While every other victim had died wearing expressions of terror or pain, Percy's was one of determination. He did not look scared, or hurt, or weak—maybe resigned, as if he had known it was the end. And fiercely protective. He had curled himself around Annabeth's limp form, shielding her head from the worst of the debris. Sally noticed that there was not a scratch on his body—suffocation had killed him, in the end; not even an invulnerable son of Poseidon could withstand thousands of pounds of pressure. This realization made it worse for Sally, knowing that he had suffered.

She could no longer look at her son's dead body, so she looked at the only thing that would take her mind off him—the body of her almost-daughter-in-law. Annabeth was curled against Percy's chest, her own cold hand grasping his. The ring on her left hand was glinting forlornly, undamaged. Her face, unlike the others', was completely expressionless, so that Sally could almost fool herself into thinking that Annabeth was asleep. Her cheek was resting on a rounded chunk of plaster, almost like a pillow, that was coated with dust.

The dust stirred.

Sally blinked.

No, she must have imagined it.

But she couldn't have…

So it was a breeze.

But she had not felt one.

The dust swirled again.

Sally cautiously laid her fingertips against Annabeth's neck.

Her warm, flesh-and-blood neck.

She felt the faintest hint of a pulse.

_Impossible. _No one could have survived a quake like that; the debris and pressure would have killed them.

Except that Percy had taken the worst of it.

Sally placed her hand in front of Annabeth's mouth.

She felt breath.

It was too much to hope for…

And then Annabeth groaned, and her eyes fluttered open.

"Wh-where…?" she croaked.

Sally could not speak. Shock had paralyzed her.

Tears leaked from Annabeth's eyes as she looked on Percy's cold face. She lifted her left hand and ran her fingertips along his jaw line, her body shaking with quiet sobs. Her eyes closed again for a long minute. Then she groaned, "It hurts."

Sally could see what Annabeth meant. While Percy's body shield had kept the young woman alive, her body was ravaged, probably beyond repair. Her right foot was smashed flat, like a pancake, and both of her legs were twisted at impossible angles. There were several large gashes on her head, and her right arm was broken and useless, limp at her side. Sally knew of the miracles of nectar and ambrosia, but she had none and didn't know how to get any before it was too late. She didn't know if even the food of the gods could save Annabeth now.

The girl whimpered, "Make it stop." Louder, "Make it stop… Make—make it… stop."

"I wish I could," Sally whispered. She knew Annabeth well, and had never before seen her so helpless. It terrified her more than anything else she'd seen, even her own son's face on the news, seeing this unshakable, strong, stable girl completely broken, both inside and out.

Annabeth was shattered. All the king's horses and all the king's men…

"Make it stop," Annabeth pleaded. When Sally laid a hand on Annabeth's shaking torso, trying to comfort her, she felt broken ribs.

"Make it stop!" she cried, screaming and writhing in agony, her useless legs flung this way and that as she shuddered and convulsed.

No one could hear them. It was as if some invisible barrier had cut the two of them off from the rest of the world.

"Please," she sobbed. Sally could do nothing but sit and cry with Annabeth. Eventually the girl's choking cries quieted, as if she was losing the energy to do even that. Finally Annabeth coughed and stared beseechingly at Sally.

"My knife," she whispered. "I need… knife." Her good hand twitched feebly.

Sally pulled it from the rubble but did not hand it over. "We can save you, I can find some… some nectar, or…"

Annabeth smiled and shook her head. "No. Won't… work. Even…even miracles have lim—" she coughed again, "limits."

Sally gave her the knife.

Annabeth closed her eyes and curled closer to Percy's body.

And she plunged the blade into her own heart.

Annabeth sighed, and she moved no more.

Sally sobbed.

There were scrambling, frantic footsteps, and a hand on her shoulder, and Sally hoped with all her heart that it was Paul, coming to comfort her. Instead she got a news anchor.

"Excuse me, ma'am, but my crew and I were wondering if you were related to any of the quake victims." She flashed a blinding smile and pushed her unnaturally blond hair out of her lipstick.

Sally put a hand on Percy's cold arm and whispered, "He… he was my… my son."

The woman's face lit up. "In that case, can we ask a few questions for our next segment? We're doing a piece on families torn apart by the disaster, and we want some emotional interviews."

Sally was trying to think of a polite way to say _Shut up and leave me alone,_ but then the little girl who had been sitting by Thalia strode over, looking at the reporter with disgust.

"You have no place here," the girl stated coldly. "Leave this fair woman to her grieving."

"Are you another relative?" the reporter boomed. "Who was the victim?"

The little girl pointed behind her. "She was my sister."

Sally thought that Thalia and the girl looked nothing alike, but she also got the feeling that the yellow-eyed girl wasn't referring to blood siblings.

The reporter beamed. "In that case, could I ask you a few questions about your sister?"

"No." the child snapped. "You have no place here. Leave."

"Hey there, kid," the reporter growled, "you aren't going to tell me what to—"

"You. _Will._ Leave." The girl stated, her eyes flashing silver. The reporter blinked. Then she mumbled, "Yeah… I'll leave…" she and the camera man shuffled away.

Sally turned to thank the girl, but she—along with Thalia's body—had vanished. The stars sparkled with a new pattern: next to the constellation of Zoe Nightshade, there was a girl with spiky hair, knives drawn. The full moon overhead flared, and the bodies of Percy, Annabeth, Nico, Katie, Connor, and Travis dissolved into moonlight. Six more constellations sparkled: a boy and girl, weapons drawn, standing back to back, with the others crouching around them. The voice of the auburn-haired girl swirled on the night breeze:

_Live forever in the stars…_

O-o-O

**Look, I'm sorry this too so long; track season just started. I'll probably be on HIATUS for a while. Reviews are welcome, and keep praying for Japan. **


End file.
